For Your Own Good

Have you ever considered John 16:7? On some level, I guess I’ve always considered its implications to be something along the lines of, “Of course it’s to my benefit that He goes away. That’s how salvation was bought.” But I’d NEVER considered the full implication of this verse.

To that point, Jesus had been walking with His disciples for a while, but had only walked WITH them. In order for them (and us) to have God IN us, however, He had to ascend and come back as the Holy Spirit. He tells His disciples it is for their good that He goes away. That way, He can indwell them (and us) so that they (and we) could be the temple where He lives!
What does that mean for you? The indwelling that this Spirit gives me means that how I feel/my circumstances DO NOT have to define my day. HE can define my day, no matter what my circumstance or environment! No matter what is going on around me, the Creator of the Universe lives IN ME, and all of His resources are mine because He knows me and lives in me. This really is a good thing!
So, what keeps you from experiencing His presence in your life? A couple of observations come to mind.
1) You do not belong to Him. If you’ve never given Him your life, you have not been indwelled by His Spirit. To solve this, place your hope and trust in Him today.
2) You’ve never really “needed” Him. For too many followers of Jesus, faith consists of asking His blessing on our already well-laid plans. We seek comfort, affluence, and prosperity, missing the fact that God is near to the broken hearted. Recently reading a book about the Holy Spirit, I read about a group of Korean missionary who were abducted by the Taliban. Two were martyred for their faith, and the rest squabbled over the honor of being the next to go. Before anyone else could be killed, the Korean government negotiated their release. Upon returning home, all of the former captives voiced a desire to be back in captivity because of the intimacy with Christ they found during their captivity. At their darkest hour, they found themselves closer to Christ than they ever had been.Their story reminded me that God doesn’t strive for my comfort or safety. He strives for His Glory.
3) Noise: our lives become so cluttered with busyness that we simply CANNOT focus on a relationship with Christ. With text messages, voice messages, music, television, reading, FaceBook, cell phones, etc., we lack the capacity for a quiet conversation with our Creator. Many times we create the noise with noble causes that seem to deepen our intimacy but only keep us from God.All too often we substitute a book, Bible study, or spiritual event for intimacy, quenching the Spirit in our lives and missing His presence in our lives.
Give your life to Christ. Realize your need for Him each day instead of comfort. “Unplug” for the sake of your relationship with Him. He has given you His Spirit for your own good.

Where Are You?

According to Roger’s Innovation Adoption Curve, people fall into one of five categories. He defines the categories like this:

Innovators: Brave people pulling the change
Early Adopters: Respectable people, opinion leaders, who try out new ideas in a careful way.
Early Majority: Thoughtful people, careful, but accepting change more quickly than the average.
Late Majority: skeptical people, they will only use ideas or products when the majority are using them.
Laggards: traditional people, caring for the “old ways,” are critical towards new ideas and will only use them when become the main stream or even tradition.
Now, let’s have some fun. Go to my blog (http://www.thejiggybishop.com) and read these descriptions to someone who knows you well. Ask them which one you are. I would be willing to bet that most of us put ourselves on the more adventurous end of the spectrum than we really are. Post their responses as replies.

Knowing

The Bible tells us that man's ulitimate pursuit, the biggest blessing he can reap is to KNOW God. And yet, knowing God continues to be one of man's great challenges. He struggles with getting his head around eternity, he can't rise to the mind and thoughts of God. And a lot of folks check it in right there. It would be an impossible task except for one thing: God wants to be known...and more personally, He wants us to know Him.

God isn't Divinity in a vacuum. He is not a Deity on the dodge, ducking behind convenient theologies and religious rituals. He has openly and honestly addressed our human need and desire to know Him. The Bible tells the story of a God longing to be known by His creation. It's pages unfold that story in vivid vignettes. And those pages elicit a bold invitation for you and I to become part of the story.

Join Him this Winter as the family at The Heights Fellowship "steps into the pages" of scripture to meet a God who has always been working, pursuing, inviting, and speaking to our need to know...

The Day After

It wasn't the right size, the right color. It just wasn't what I wanted. It was a duplicate gift. All these are reasons why people are returning Christmas gifts. Tis the Season...

We've been told for years that "Black Friday" (the day after Thanksgiving) is the busiest and most prolific shopping day of the year.. But while "Black Friday" holds that reputation, data in this decade indicates that the days immediately prior to Christmas hold the distinction of most prolific shopping days (the days when retail sales spike for the holiday season).

And of course we've heard that the day after Christmas is the busiest day for returns of many Christmas gifts. Which begs the question: What really happens the day after Christmas?

Now that we've remembered and observed Jesus, do we exchange Him for a different life and perspective for the rest of our year? Is baby Jesus neatly packed away with the nativity scene, to be reinstated in the home decor next holiday? Do we take down the "light of the world" with the Christmas lights? In short, now that we've celebrated and commemorated the Advent, do we add events back into our lives more suitable to our taste and decor?

Or, maybe, just maybe, Christmas stirred something inside us...something of a more eternal nature. Maybe somewhere amid the presents, we discovered the Gift, and it changed us. And when we did, the words jumped off the page and their truth transformed our hearts.

If so, you're in very good company. That happened the first Christmas: And the shepherds went back, glorifying and praising God for all that they had heard and seen, just as had been told them. (Luke 2:20 nas)

Here's a gift that need not be returned the day after.

HIStory

One of the great surprises of life is to find out that God is pursuing a relationship with you. Too often we read the pages of scripture and their accounts of Bible heroes and mark it down as really good ancient literature or as an exciting story to read our children. And then, we remember that the same God that worked in them, works in us. In fact that is exactly what God tells us:

we also constantly thank God that when you received from us the word of God's message, you accepted it not as the word of men, but for what it really is, the word of God, which also performs its work in you who believe.
1 Thessalonians 2:13 nas

And what we find is this: Their Story is also OUR story, but ultimately it is HIStory...the tale of an eternal, loving God working in the lives of men. Join us as we make HIStory at The Heights Fellowship.

A Postcard from the Edge

Have you heard all the pundits attempting to pick this year's football winners...in August and September! A lot can happen between now and the season's end. The best any of these "experts" can do is to look at talent and schedule and guess. But one thing we all know for sure is that whatever teams keep their edge are probably going to come out ahead at the end of the season.

Through the Fall, we're using the theme "GameDay" as our direction at The Heights. One of the greatest coaches of all time once said, "Make game day your best day." I believe that's true. And I believe that for the believer, "GameDay" is today...right now...this moment. In the ordinary of the day to day or in he extremity of trying circumstances, we as a church are called to shine, because we as individuals who have been saved, set free, set apart, and set up for victory by Jesus are called to shine (Matt 5:16)

Since our earthly future is tenuous and uncertain, we who know the One who holds eternity are called to pack everything into the moment. A large part of victorious living is winning this moment. God calls that faithfulness, and it's a very, very edgy thing.

Like a championship team, we need to learn how to keep our winning edge. Join us in the moments ahead as we discover what that means. How do we stay in the game? How do we stay useful and available in God's hand? How do we win the moments?

Let's make this game day our best day. Make it your goal this fall to be a part of an awesome community at The Heights Fellowship.

Communion

Undoubtedly, the word communion conjures up visual images of priests and robes and high church ceremony. I supposed that is one application. However, at its heart, the word has a more familiar texture. In fact, the source of communion falls nearer a more familiar, used word: community. Both have an old English word for sharing as their root. Both represent something that we share...something that we have in common.

This Sunday, THF will celebrate communion, what a lot of us refer to as The Lord's Supper, as a part of our worship expression. We will rejoice in that - better said, HIM that we have in common. It will be a poignant, meaningful time of reflection, remembrance, and celebration. Hope you'll be there.

We will celebrate twice - 9:01 and again at 10:46 am.

See you here!